Self-advocacy is a critical skill for children and young adults. In the simplest terms, it is the ability to use strategies to get your needs met. Without a doubt, stronger self-advocacy skills can help kids improve academics, strengthen relationships, and build confidence as their authentic self.
The importance of building self-advocacy with kids and teens cannot be overstated. Self-advocacy truly is a life skill that kids use in all areas of their lives. A student self-advocates when they raise their hand to ask a question on a topic they don’t fully understanding. A student also self-advocates when they say no to skipping class when encouraged by a friend.
It’s also worth mentioning that self-advocacy prepares kids and teens for life after high school too. As adults, we need to advocate for ourselves when we deserve a salary increase at work or speak up when we feel we’re being treated unfairly in a relationship.
As an educator or parent, there are multiple strategies to teach, practice, and encourage self-advocacy skills with your kids and teens.
Talk about self-advocacy.
Self-advocacy is a skill that learners of all ages can discuss. Introduce the term “self-advocacy” as a vocabulary word, talk about what it means, and why it’s important. Here are some simple conversation-starters to try:
- What does it mean to self-advocate?
- When are some times you might need to advocate and speak up for yourself?
- How can you advocate for yourself if you don’t have what you need?
- How does sharing your opinion and ideas help you advocate for yourself?
- How do you advocate for yourself with friends and family?
Once students understand the basics of self-advocacy, make it a common practice to talk about self-advocacy together. For 2nd graders, you might remind them to use their self-advocacy skills by raising their hand and asking for help if they don’t understand a question. For high schoolers, you might encourage students to self-advocate by filling out an “extra help” form if they notice they need extra help with the content.
The idea here is that self-advocacy is for everyone and it should be discussed often.
Embrace a growth mindset.
Just like math and reading, self-advocacy is a skill that can be learned. Help students embrace the idea that they can and will improve their self-advocacy skills with practice. This can be done by discussing and encouraging a growth mindset together.
You can introduce the idea of a fixed vs. growth mindset using the example of someone learning how to play the guitar. At first, it’s challenging. The person might not know how to hold the guitar or which strings to press down on. But with strategies, practice, and time, the student can get better at playing.
With a fixed mindset, a student might believe, “I’m just not good at speaking up for myself. I feel too shy and don’t like it. I’ll never learn.” Instead, you can discuss that students can learn strategies, techniques, and tools to help them build those skills over time. Someone with a growth mindset say, “Self-advocacy is tough for me, but it’s a skill I’m learning. I’m going to keep building these skills with practice.”
Cultivate a safe learning environment.
Kids and teens should learn in a place where it feels safe to ask questions, speak up, share their ideas, and disagree with each other. If we want students to be able to advocate for themselves, we have to set the stage. This means developing an environment where speaking up is welcomed without fear of feeling embarrassed. Use classroom community-building activities such as morning meeting, daily reflection time, class meetings, and kindness shares to make this happen over time.
Encourage independence.
An important component of self-advocacy is helping learners become more independent. Ultimately, self-advocacy helps us achieve more of our wants, needs, and goals. That’s an empowering thought!
Read some of the independence-building statements with your learners to discuss them:
- I have the freedom to make my own choices.
- I am the best person to advocate and stand up for myself.
- I deserve to have my voice heard.
For each statement, talk about what it means, why it is important, and how it relates to their lives. The goal is to empower learners that they can achieve their goals, hopes, and desires.
Build self-awareness skills.
Self-awareness is understanding who you are, what you like, how you feel, and what you need to be successful. In order for learners to speak up to get what they need, they must figure out what it is they need in the first place.
There are many strategies to work on self-awareness skills including daily reflection questions, talking about strengths and challenges, discussing interests, and providing a daily time to check-in with emotions.
Discuss real life self-advocacy scenarios.
Just like any skill, mastering self-advocacy requires lots of practice. Provide meaningful practice for kids and teens by working through real-life self-advocacy scenarios. It helps to include scenarios in different parts of students’ lives.
School / Academic Scenarios:
- You were out sick and now you don’t know what the homework was. What do you do?
- You don’t agree with the grade a teacher gave you. What do you do?
- You would like a copy of the notes from your teacher. What do you do?
Friendship Scenarios:
- You keep making plans with a friend, but they keep canceling. What do you do?
- You agree to be partners with your best friend on a project, but now they are fooling around. What do you do?
- A friend keeps calling you a name that you don’t like. What do you do?
Teach problem-solving skills.
Self-advocacy skills and problem-solving skills are strongly connected. Discuss what it means so problem-solve and come up with different problem-solving strategies together. A few important strategies to discuss include talking it out, using I-statements, letting it go, trying another way, asking for help, and saying, “stop.” Talk about each strategy and when you might use it in different real-life situations.
Give time to share opinions.
Part of self-advocacy is being able to express your thoughts and opinions. Group discussions are a great time for kids and teens to practice voicing their opinions and explaining their thoughts. This also provides a platform where students can practice standing on their own ground by disagreeing with others.
Teach self-advocacy skills explicitly.
Carve out 15-20 minutes a day (or week) to explicitly teach self-advocacy lessons to your young adults. This can be especially helpful to implement during an advisory block, small social skills group, lunch group, or homeroom time.
Practice calming strategies.
Learning to self-advocate is stressful. While building self-advocacy skills, it’s also important to teach and support calming strategies at the same time. With a calm body and mind, we are much better able to think clearly and make good self-advocacy choices.
Allow kids to solve problems on their own.
In order for kids and teens to problem-solve, they need to be given the opportunity to use the skills on their own. When a child or teen comes to you with a problem, resist the urge to solve the problem right away. While this would be easier in a number of situations (especially for a busy parent or educator), it robs the chance for the learner to put problem-solving skills to the test on their own.
Instead of problem-solving for them, it’s helpful to problem-solve with them. The difference here is that you can guide and support learners with questions, allowing them the chance to solve the problem on their own.
Some questions to try include:
- What is the problem?
- What facts do you know about the problem?
- What are three possible solutions to the problem?
- What could you do to fix that?
- Take some time to think and try on your own. Can you come back in about 10 minutes and let me know if you’ve thought of a solution?
Build confidence.
When kids and teens are more confident, they’re better prepared to speak up and advocate for themselves. The good news is that there are countless ways to boost confidence with learners.
- Start by discussing individual strengths. Have students create a compliment list that reminds them what they are great at. Students can keep this list with them (or in their lockers) as a positive tool for the future.
- Embrace uniqueness. Kids and teens should feel comfortable in their own skin and embrace their individual quirks. Give time to discuss individual interests and hobbies, whether that is through daily group discussion or a more structured show-and-tell.
- Celebrate progress and growth together. Students can feel empowered by seeing their wins over time. Create “growth binders” with students. Each week, have students choose one piece of work they are proud of to add to the binder. Then, add a written reflection explaining how they’ve grown or improved this week.
Integrate collaborative learning opportunities.
Kids and teens continue to build and strengthen self-advocacy skills when working with peers. Any group or partner work provides chances for students to speak up, voice their opinion, and problem-solve to get their needs met.
Allow for choices.
Children and young adults need practice in making choices on their own to fully advocate for themselves. Incorporate choice-making into your day. For example, if students are finishing a project on the human cell, give them the choice to write about the cell, draw a diagram, or build a model of the cell. If students are starting an essay in class, give them the choice to handwrite or type. With practice, the goal is that students can learn to make choices that best align with their needs.
Teaching self-advocacy is important and it’s a meaningful skill that kids can build over time. Start small and help your students build the skills they need for success one day at a time.
Leave a Reply